Media

LOCAL punk music venue the Birmingham Hotel in Collingwood is under fire for hosting an international network of neo-Nazis at a gig on Saturday night to commemorate the death of their white supremacist leader Ian Stuart.

Neo-Nazis from around Australia attended the gig on Smith Street, many of them wearing swastikas, to listen to “hatecore” bands.

The concert was sponsored by Blood & Honour Australia – the local chapter of a global neo-Nazi organisation that is banned in Germany – and Aryan supremacists the Southern Cross Hammerskins.

It was one of the few events organised by the secretive groups that was open to the public.

Collingwood police said it was well known that [boneheads] and neo-Nazis frequented at the Birmingham.

“These people (Blood & Honour) are much more than right-wingers, they are into the politics of the gas chambers, genocide politics,” Cr Jolly, a candidate for the state election, said.

“These dangerous fruitcakes have no place in a municipality where we have migrants from around the world, not to mention gays and lesbians.”

Birmingham Hotel owner Gary, who refused to give his surname, denied it was a neo-Nazi gig.

“It was a punk, skinhead gig that was the same as any night of the week,” he said. “I do parties for anyone, doesn’t matter what religion or faith, I don’t judge anyone … When someone comes through the door I don’t ask them what they are.”

“When the Iraq war was on, I had Iraqis in the pub, and I don’t judge them. This is about people trying to get their names in the paper.”

People wore Ku Klux Klan outfits at similar Blood & Honour concerts in other countries to commemorate the death of the Scottish [sic] white-power leader.

Songs by Newcastle band Blood Red Eagle, which played on Saturday, include lyrics such as “from the blood soaked ground on the battlefield, we shall rise up and never yield … on the city streets we fight to win.”

Australasian anti-fascist campaigners Fight Dem Back! say The Birmingham Hotel has endangered the local community by hosting a large neo-Nazi skinhead gig.

On Saturday the 23rd of September, neo-Nazis from around Australia and the world came to Melbourne for the annual Ian Stuart Donaldson memorial gig. Ian Stuart, who died in a car crash in 1993, was the lead singer for neo-Nazi band Skrewdriver.

The gig was held by the local branch of Blood & Honour – a global neo-Nazi network banned in Germany and considered a terrorist organisation by British and Belgian authorities – and the Southern Cross Hammerskins (SCHS), the local branch of another international neo-Nazi skinhead network. These two groups are responsible for numerous murders, bombings, arsons and assaults around the world.

Fight Dem Back! discovered that the gig would be held at the Birmingham Hotel after an infiltrator expressed an interest in attending. To their surprise, they were informed that the concert would be held in Fitzroy, and not at the Jam Tin in Cheltenham – a venue which Blood & Honour had used in the past.

Although the manager of the Birmingham has denied hosting the event, all three bands listed on the poster for the concert played at the Birmingham that night and approximately 50 members of Blood & Honour and SCHS were present.

Fight Dem Back!’s Australian spokesperson, Cam Smith, says the matter must be taken seriously by the wider community and the authorities.

“These are violent thugs who believe they not only have a right, but a duty, to harrass, intimidate and assault those who do not fit their bigoted ideal. If you are not white, not heterosexual, and if your politics are anywhere to the left of Adolf Hitler then you’re fair game as far as they’re concerned. The community needs to let The Birmingham know that they’re not happy with this element being brought into Fitzroy. This is a multicultural area and houses many vulnerable citizens – easy targets for neo-Nazis.”

“We are sending a powerful message to The Birmingham Hotel to stop providing a venue for these people to spread their vile message. These are dangerous fanatics – we don’t want what is happening in Europe to happen here,” he continued, referring to the uncovering of a Blood & Honour plot to destablilise Belgian democracy by way of mass murder earlier this month.

“As far as we are concerned, these scumbags are the real threat to Australian values.”

A LOCAL woman who was intimidated and racially abused by a group of men last month will attend a protest against neo-Nazism outside a Fitzroy pub.

A coalition of local groups is organising the “peace movement” in response to a neo-Nazi concert at the Birmingham Hotel on Saturday, September 23, held to commemorate the death of British white supremacist Ian Stuart.

Blondien (not her real name) says she was walking alone to her car on Johnston Street the same night when she was surrounded by about seven men. She says the men screamed abuse at her, calling her a black c..t and forcing her to repeat the insults.

“It’s disgusting that people would single out one person and you have to say stuff about your race to get out of it,” Blondien said.

Music is planned for the protest on Saturday, October 28, at 1pm outside the Birmingham.

More than 150 punks, skinheads, feminists and other protesters picketed a Fitzroy hotel on Saturday to condemn a recent neo-Nazi concert at the pub.

Tensions were high when the protesters entered The Birmingham Hotel to demand that publican Gary, who wouldn’t give his surname, answer questions about the gig and join other Smith Street traders by putting an anti-racism sticker in his window.

“It’s not my job to ask people what their beliefs are,” Gary told the protesters who crowded the public bar. He agreed to put the sticker up if protesters left.

Patrons of the bar reacted angrily to the protesters, saying two neo-Nazi gigs in five years didn’t make The Birmingham a Nazi pub. A couple drinking at the pub told TMT they had been wrongly accused of Nazism and narrowly avoided being bashed by men driving past after they left the pub last week.

During Saturday’s protest, police broke up a scuffle between Gary and the punks who put stickers outside on the hotel’s signs.

“I don’t believe discriminatory groups have a right to organise,” said one of the punks, Adam (who also wouldn’t give his surname) from Footscray. “They have no justifiable reason to have a venue in our community.”

He said that neo-Nazi skinheads, or boneheads, were a small subculture within the punk and skinhead movements but people often didn’t understand the distinction. “We cop it from them as much as anyone.”

Protesters also attached placards reading “Fuck Nazis” and “Fuck off Fascists” to signs in Smith and Johnston Streets.

Claire from Coburg said: “We want to show this pub how much opposition there is to Nazism in this area, so they stop letting them come here.”

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3 Responses to “Media”

That article about the woman being abused, is a load of shit that was made up by Marika Dobbin because B&H and SCHS declined her request for an interview.
It s amazing how she just happened to find this woman in Fitzroy that claimed to have [been] attacked by 7 men and never filed a complaint to the police. If her journalism was that good she wouldn t be working for a shitty newspaper like The Melbourne Times.
Seriously though it sounds like something straight out of a movie…

1) The story has been independently confirmed. Meaning: I do not know the woman in question, but others I know do.
2) I don’t know if a complaint was filed – why do you assume one wasn’t? In any case, people have all sorts of reasons for not filing complaints, and it’s a matter of fact that most crimes are not reported.
3) Dobbin has since left TMT.
4) I agree with you about this sounding like something out of a movie: Hitler fetishists are a weird mob. Nevertheless, they do exist, even in pubs smack-bang in the middle of Melbourne.

@ndy, you’re a fascist, you try to enforce your beliefs on all and sundry and slander/defame anybody you disagree with. Grow some testicles and show your face publicly, if you’re so happy to publish so-called “nazis/fascists” details, why don’t you make your own public?

I thought Anarchists weren’t a cowardly mob… Why do you act just like the cowards you supposedly hate? Stop being a fascist and get back to the real issues, fighting the system in power!